He could almost feel Praximar’s warning glower behind his back like an opened oven door.
“There’s no need to get into those truths, or how they influence me now, here, today. But I can say with a full and glad heart that I will not be returning to the Academy next year. Nor will I be accepting sponsorship from one of the four Houses—”
Again an uproar swept across the crowd, a wall of sound that washed over him and which was met by angry cries from the dignitaries behind him. He went to speak further, but the volume was simply too loud. But he didn’t care. He’d said what he’d wanted to, and so stepped back, a subtle smile on his lips.
Praximar shoved past him and pitched his voice into a bellow, using some device or trick to crush the outrage with his own shout. “Silence! So be it, Scorio.” He turned to stare murder at him. “You cast aside what you cannot understand nor value. I believe it is within my rights to thus disqualify you from the Gauntlet run, and pass the victory to whom it was stolen from, the rightful winner, Tomb Spark Jova Spike!”
Shock caused the voices of the crowd to soften, and Praximar gestured peremptorily at where Jova stood, her eyes glassy, her lips parted.
“Come, Jova!” Praximar’s geniality was splitting at the seams, his smile almost a grimace. “Come forth, you need but speak a few words for us to continue with the ceremony.”
Scorio stepped back, watched as Jova drifted forward to stand before the assembled audience of students and citizens of Bastion, the visiting Great Souls from deep Hell, and the instructors and staff of the Academy.
The voices died down altogether as she stood there, black hair sweeping over and down past one shoulder, her black-lined eyes wide, her black lips pursed. Then she blinked, as if coming back to herself, licked her lower lip, and raised her chin.
“I, too, will not be returning next year. I also decline to join one of the Great Houses.”
Scorio felt his mouth slacken as he stared at Jova, who turned to consider him, her poise regained, wry amusement entering her dark eyes.
Praximar spluttered, his face turning waxen, but before he could speak, Jova walked down the first three steps and then looked back to Scorio.
Her words were utterly distinct in the shocked silence. “You coming?”
For a second Scorio couldn’t understand her words. Then the cries of the crowd arose in a howl, demands, and imprecations being hurled at them from all sides, and Praximar was yelling, face scarlet, his eyes bulging.
But it all seemed to be drowned out behind the immediacy of Jova’s expectant pause, her raised eyebrow, her probing stare.
“Yeah,” he said at last, his word lost to the clamor, and walked past the gaping Chen She, past Instructors Feng and Helminth and Hera, past all the dignitaries of the four Houses. Past Praximar, who screamed threats at him, and down the steps to where Jova awaited him.
She turned, and together they descended to the basilica’s floor. Shoulder to shoulder they walked out, past all the biers, only Lianshi and Leonis cheering them on, while everyone else cried out, shouted, hurled questions, and cursed them.
They reached the double doors that led out to the Aureate Hall, and together they pushed them open, passed through, and left the Academy behind.
Chapter 80
Jova moved with purpose, and Scorio was content to simply walk beside her, their footsteps echoing in the empty halls. It gave him time to process, to come to terms with what had happened. To accept his success, his new resolve, his growth.
He thought of Eberro. Thought of Naomi’s admonitions. That powerful moment when he’d chosen to take responsibility for himself, for his past, for his deed names and titles.
Praximar, his face apoplectic. The tears shining in Lianshi’s eyes, Naomi’s proud smile, Leonis’s brazen cheer. His chest filled suddenly with emotion, his breath caught, and when Jova glanced sidelong at him, he could only give her a tight smile.
They descended a flight of steps, walked the length of a student’s residential hall, and stopped at the last door. Jova unlocked it with deft, economical movements, pushed the stuck door with her shoulder, and led him inside.
Her suite.
It was like his own, if perhaps more modest; a small common room spread before them, the carpeting burgundy, cushions strewn about, a low table in the center covered in scrolls, half-finished meals, candles burned down to their bowls, and potent mana treasures on enameled altars which radiated such potent power that Scorio could sense them even without summoning his Heart.
Still silent, she moved to sit on a cushion set against the far wall.
Archways led off to bedrooms. The rear wall through ferns to a small pool. All so similar, yet so utterly alien as this was her space, her private domain, and he was in it, with her, alone.
Scorio suddenly felt uneasy, didn’t know how to stand, to act. Jova looked completely poised, not at ease, but alert, confident, still. Carefully, he moved to another cushion and sat upon it.
They sat in silence, studying each other. It was bizarre, almost, surreal even, to sit like this with Jova, after so many months of only catching glimpses of her from afar. To be alone with her after spending so many nights ruminating on how best to beat her, to catch up with her progress, to achieve exactly what he’d just done. And now that he was here? He didn’t know what to say.
“How did you do it?” she asked at last, tone… complex. Curious. Demanding. Perhaps a touch resentful? Was there admiration there, as well as confusion and anger?
“Hard work, mostly. Took risks others wouldn’t be willing to take, or which wouldn’t have been options for them, given their easy resources here at the Academy.”
Jova nodded, a touch impatient. “Hard work, obviously. But you went from Cinder to Tomb Spark almost overnight. That’s… unprecedented.”
“It’s not,” said Scorio, and smiled again. “Ever hear of a guy called Iulius the Golden? He reached Flame Vault in his first year. I just kept quiet about making Emberling a couple of weeks ago.”
“Fine. I’m sure it’s been done before, but still, you ascended from Emberling to Tomb Spark in only a couple of weeks.” She glared at him. “How?”
Scorio stared at his hands. “Desperation? I made a deal with a fiend out in the ruins. He allowed me to use his mana condensation pool in exchange for a handbook on… well, that part’s complicated. But the process worked, mostly, and I made Emberling. Then I hit Tomb Spark during my run in the Gauntlet.” He paused, hesitating, then blurted out, “I saw you in there.”
Her eyes narrowed. “In the Gauntlet? I died before you, then.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m not. I went fast and hard. That might have been my undoing. My team fell apart rapidly. I petitioned to enter with Juniper instead of Kuragin but was denied. Of course.”
“I… didn’t know that.”
“You’ve been an outsider. There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Sure.” Scorio accepted that verdict with a slow nod. “Like what you might have written in your journals about me.”
“Smooth transition,” she said, her amusement showing through again. “Very nicely done.”
“Thank you.” Scorio felt almost breathless. What was going on? He’d thought she’d be furious at having come in second place, would hate him, resent him for being a Red Lister and having beaten her so publicly. Instead, their exchange felt almost… playful?
She leaned forward and drew a tattered old book from the central table. “I have it right here, actually. I’ve read it many times since you drew my attention to it.”
Scorio felt his stomach clench. “You found something?”
“Of course. It was simple. Praximar stated your last reincarnation was two hundred and thirty-three years ago. Which led me to this particular journal.”
“Oh. Right.” Scorio blinked. “And?”
“I was suspicious of you, even back then. I was a Flame Vault, you an infamous Blood Baron. You came to me at the Fiery Shoals. You were being hunted.”